www.atarimania.com Posted December 22, 2023 Share Posted December 22, 2023 I knew something really cool was in the pipeline but this is quite incredible to say the least: https://www.gamesthatwerent.com/2023/12/defender-and-stargate-discoveries/ 14 9 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ely Posted December 22, 2023 Share Posted December 22, 2023 (edited) I was just coming here to post about this. Truly amazing that neither of these got picked up and released! Edited December 22, 2023 by Ely 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DjayBee Posted December 22, 2023 Share Posted December 22, 2023 Wow, nice Christmas present to the community. 🌲🎁 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rdefabri Posted December 22, 2023 Share Posted December 22, 2023 Amazing! His work was more faithful to the arcade version than the official release (as also noted in the video). Shame it wasn't picked up by Atari, but nice to have these now. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tjlazer Posted December 22, 2023 Share Posted December 22, 2023 Saw that! Pretty nice versions. They run a lot smoother than the official release! 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Avram Posted December 22, 2023 Share Posted December 22, 2023 I'm so glad to see that these exist! Years ago I posted on these forums about an article from, I think, Edge magazine, where it mentioned Archer McClean's Defender prototypes. It's nice that the world can finally see both of these projects! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lostdragon Posted December 22, 2023 Share Posted December 22, 2023 6 hours ago, Ely said: I was just coming here to post about this. Truly amazing that neither of these got picked up and released! I posted links in a few places today, related to the subject matters in question, but absolutely delighted to see a dedicated thread for them. Amazing work by all involved. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heaven/TQA Posted December 22, 2023 Share Posted December 22, 2023 and you see a lot of those routines in Dropzone... just played some rounds of Defender... and my brain plays the explosion sound Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ely Posted December 23, 2023 Share Posted December 23, 2023 I’m surprised how little interest this has had on here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DjayBee Posted December 23, 2023 Share Posted December 23, 2023 The topic's title is not really click bait but more lucky bag. 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted December 23, 2023 Share Posted December 23, 2023 4 hours ago, Ely said: I’m surprised how little interest this has had on here. Is conversation the only evidence of interest? It's perfectly fitting that these exist. It's amazing that we now have them in hand. Performance (speed, smoothness) and style are outstanding -- as would be expected. I wish they had been brought to completion, and, better still, published by Atari. How many times can comments like these be repeated? In reality, it was necessary for the man to die in order for us to obtain these. Therefore, I feel grief in looking at them, mixed with my joy over their content. I would have been happier to keep these sentiments to myself, with the knowledge that I'm surely not alone... 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted December 23, 2023 Share Posted December 23, 2023 The linked video and article detail everything about the contents, not leaving much room or need for commenting further. I'd happily hear more if there's anything more to hear about them. I suppose some people who'll study them further may need some time -- if there's actually anything much else to find out or say about them. I've looked at some of the BASIC source code and didn't see anything to further comment on (didn't examine everything, though). Drop Zone is a masterpiece of Atari 8-bit computer programming, graphic art, animation, and visual effects. Had the platform been a viable commercial vehicle for several years longer, we may have seen more than this and International Karate/World Karate Championship (another masterpiece) from Archer. He certainly did his part, though, to help prove what the platform is capable of doing. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ely Posted December 23, 2023 Share Posted December 23, 2023 3 hours ago, MrFish said: Is conversation the only evidence of interest? Apparently not, but I take your point. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BobAtari Posted December 30, 2023 Share Posted December 30, 2023 On 12/23/2023 at 11:02 AM, Ely said: I’m surprised how little interest this has had on here. Because the games are a faff to run? Quote To load in each build, load in the file as a BINARY LOAD, then RUN AT ADDRESS and use the following address for each: DEF1 + DEF2 = 7B06 DEF3 = $4000 DEF4 = Should autorun when you binary load it. Anyone converted them into an autorunning XEX or similar? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
www.atarimania.com Posted December 30, 2023 Author Share Posted December 30, 2023 The disks were left untouched to respect Archer Maclean's work and show the development cycle. As you don't seem to be interested in that part, just use the BINARY LOAD option for the file called DEF4 which is the latest build. Otherwise, move it out from the disk and rename it to DEFENDER.XEX, it isn't rocket science. As for Stargate, the latest version just autoruns. 6 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BobAtari Posted December 31, 2023 Share Posted December 31, 2023 16 hours ago, www.atarimania.com said: The disks were left untouched to respect Archer Maclean's work and show the development cycle. As you don't seem to be interested in that part, just use the BINARY LOAD option for the file called DEF4 which is the latest build. Otherwise, move it out from the disk and rename it to DEFENDER.XEX, it isn't rocket science. Well, maybe not to you, but I never owned an Atari 8-bit so I don't have the slightest idea what that means. I did, on the other hand, know Archer Maclean and I'm pretty sure he wouldn't find it "disrespectful" for people to actually be able to enjoy his work without taking a degree in Atari nerding first. But, y'know, 🤷♂️ 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Overange Posted December 31, 2023 Share Posted December 31, 2023 Before I read or even opened this topic, I just just watched the video on this and it is really interesting. 3 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BobAtari Posted January 3 Share Posted January 3 On 12/23/2023 at 11:02 AM, Ely said: I’m surprised how little interest this has had on here. Well, I guess that mystery is solved. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rdefabri Posted January 3 Share Posted January 3 These seem so far along in terms of development, it's too bad Atari didn't bite, would have been great to see these finished. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Thag Posted January 3 Share Posted January 3 This is a damn cool bit of news. It'll be even better if we can salvage the code and disassemble it so someone can finish it, as both of these seem to have the potential to be better than the Atari offerings. If not though, it's still cool. No wonder Dropzone was such a good Defender clone. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lostdragon Posted March 6 Share Posted March 6 Second part of Archer's Arcade experiments is up. 3 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted March 6 Share Posted March 6 5 hours ago, Lostdragon said: Second part of Archer's Arcade experiments is up. Thanks for the update. Great to hear that they've been able to preserve just about everything on Archer's disks. Looking forward to seeing more in the future. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sargie Posted March 6 Share Posted March 6 (edited) Thanks for sharing this; it's all very interesting stuff. One of the things that has struck me when watching these videos is the value of time when developing software. Archer's games were all high-quality and incredibly polished, and the fact that he had a lot of time (relatively speaking) to experiment, develop, and iterate on his products has a lot to do with this. This was not a luxury many developers had "back in the day" when games often had to be crunched out in a couple of months to meet an exacting deadline. When we look at a lot of the sub-standard games on the A8 that could have been better, it seems like a common factor that makes them so (apart from the inherent skill of the creator) is often the time they had to develop the work in and the target memory they were aiming for. All things being equal, more time and more memory means a better product. There are always exceptions of course (Donkey Kong on the A8 being an obvious example), but I wonder how much better many of the games we got would have been if the hardware had been 48K standard from the beginning and developers were given more reasonable time limits to execute their work. Edited March 6 by sargie 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted March 6 Share Posted March 6 4 minutes ago, sargie said: but I wonder how much better many of the games we got would have been if the hardware had been 48K standard from the beginning and developers were given more reasonable time limits to execute their work. A lot of them would have been better; but that's business. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TomDarth5 Posted March 7 Share Posted March 7 On 3/6/2024 at 1:15 PM, Lostdragon said: Second part of Archer's Arcade experiments is up. I was just about to post the very same article until I saw this. very interesting read/ watch too. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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